


Play With Fire

by thelittlewolf



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, Friendship, Hydra, Multi, RedCaptain, RedSoldier, Rescue Mission, Romance, SHIELD, Torture, torture for information
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-27
Updated: 2020-03-11
Packaged: 2021-02-26 20:53:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21585196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelittlewolf/pseuds/thelittlewolf
Summary: Dr. Ruby Harvey has been SHIELD's therapist for the top level assets and personal friend to them after hours - Steve Rogers especially. But when she is kidnapped by Hydra, her safety and the Avengers' are put at risk. Will her resolve to protect her friends hold out no matter what they do to her, or will she find a protector in the most unexpected place?
Relationships: Bucky Barnes/OC Female, Steve Rogers/OC Female
Kudos: 16





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [I'll Be Home For Christmas](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17142014) by [allstoriesintheend](https://archiveofourown.org/users/allstoriesintheend/pseuds/allstoriesintheend). 



“Bring her around. We aren’t here to cater to whenever she chooses to finally wake up,” drolled the accented and clearly annoyed voice from the doorway before a bucket of icy water was tipped over the mess of blonde hair that hung like curtains about the unconscious face of a seemingly delicate woman.

Anosov. Sasha Anosov was that man’s name, as the woman would later learn.

With a frightened gasp, followed by a hyperventilating panic, the woman struggled against the metal cuffs that encircled her wrists, ankles and neck, binding her to the rigid chair.

“Nice of you to finally join us Dr. Harvey… Or do you prefer Red?” The man from the door emerged out of the slight darkness so that the shivering blonde could see him properly as he held an open file in his hands that he seemed to skim through instead of focusing on her. “It’s so hard to tell, sometimes. Our intel hardly provides us with preferences like that, so we have to ask.”

For a moment, he looked up at her expectantly, as if awaiting her to answer, but she didn’t, and he couldn’t quite tell if she was simply in shock or being defiant. Maybe both, given her history. After all, it had been quite the traumatic experience extracting her from her apartment basement garage. She had tried to put up quite the fight, but ultimately it came to an end when The Asset finally managed to get his hand around her throat and held her with her feet dangling helplessly over the pavement until she fell unconscious. It was a sight that Sasha had to admit, had a sort of beauty to it. She had successfully eliminated three of the four he had sent to extract her, and he was struck at how horrified she had seemed at being forced to take a life. Had it been her first time pulling that trigger with it aimed on another human being, or did she just value life so dearly that she intrinsically reacted that way anytime she was forced to take a life? Though how, as a SHIELD PSYCH Specialist, she would have ever had the opportunity to kill another person, he didn’t know. Maybe she had secrets as dark of the rest of them… Questions and thoughts to keep him busy in the long, dull hours that were certain to follow while they waited for her to crack.

“No? Red it is then. Easier, less personal. Anyway, let’s just make this easy on everybody and you tell us what we need to know and it will save us all the hassle, yes?” Though he knew better than to expect her to just give him the answers he needed. However, he enjoyed the drama of it all, even though more silence followed. “We need the information of Steven Roger’s security detail, his weaknesses, and your SHIELD mainframe access codes.”

Only then did she make a sort of strangled noise, paired with a look of horror as a sort of realization dawned on her… And he smirked.

“Well, that’s just to start. You’re quite valuable to us, my dear. You know many things that we need.” And then he paused on purpose, to bridge the last of the distance between them until the toe of his boot inched over the drain between her bare feet. “And you will tell us… One way or another.”

His knuckles brushed a stray lock of hair back behind her ear before she flinched away from his touch, and then he turned around, walking back towards the door. “Send in The Asset. Inform him that she has a fear of drowning and hates freezing. But make sure he knows to not kill this one this time.”

And then he was gone.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

The Asset. That was what they called him. That wasn’t his name, but that was what they called him. Sometimes, they called him The Winter Soldier, but that sounded wrong in his head too. He had another name, one he couldn’t remember, one from a long time ago, when he was someone else. He called himself Winter instead, but only in his head. No one else could hear. He was supposed to only follow orders, answer direct questions.

It had been three days since he had caught the target: a flimsy woman who seemed about his height. She had tried to shoot him, as he had those assigned to the mission with him, and she had emptied the entire clip trying to shoot him anywhere, but his reflexes had been faster and his metal arm had blocked the bullets. It was an annoying thing really, but manageable. She had still ended up unconscious with his metal hand wrapped around her throat, squeezing until she stopped squirming and she went limp.

That made Sasha happy, and when Sasha was happy, Winter wasn’t punished.

He remembered sitting in the back of the windowless van with The Target, she was laid across the floor and he sat at the back doors so that he was between her and the only available exit to her, but she never stirred once. However, he took note of her even breathing, the rise and fall of her chest in the white button down she wore, and how her face sometimes scrunched up as though she were in pain, but then it would fall slack again, and he almost thought she looked as though she was peacefully sleeping. Did that mean when her face scrunched up that she was having nightmares like he did?

It had been three days since he was escorted down the dark halls to the room with the metal door that locked from the outside. He had killed many people inside that room, but he had been specifically that he was not to kill The Target this time, no matter what, which almost disappointed him. Watching that light fade from their eyes and see that look of peace settle on their relaxed faces after days of horror and pain was his favorite part. He always liked seeing it all end so that it could be quiet again.

It had been three days of having a towel over her face while her chair was knocked back on the floor while he held a hose of icy water over her head, listening to her choke and gasp, watching her struggle and shiver as she slowly drowned. But still, she said nothing. She never once answered his questions.

Three days of listening to her cry.

Three days of watching her freeze.

He hated the cold. He felt sorry for her.

Today was supposed to be different. He had new orders. They wanted him to try something new.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

A part of her had always worried this day would come. A part of her always knew that she would never truly be safe after following Steve to SHIELD. Still, he had reassured her so many times. He had said she would be safe if she worked for SHIELD, rather than in the private sector. They could protect her, she would make more money, and she would be doing a real difference rather than catering to spoiled teens with drug addictions and their parents’ bank accounts to burn.

And she had listened to him. He was her best friend, after all, and she was his.

It wasn’t quite an orthodox relationship, considering he had sought out her services and clinic at Clint Barton’s suggestion. Though, it had been flattering at first, and amusing to know that even with the world at his disposal, the great Captain America wanted a quiet, calm place to unburden his mind, rather than with the elite therapists that SHIELD was certain to have. What had started as a client and his therapist eventually turned to a trusted friendship, and mutually beneficial one at that.

And so she transferred to working for SHIELD, specializing in counseling high value assets at SHIELD.

Steve had promised she would be safe there, that nothing bad would or could ever happen to her there. No client would ever attack her, or at least get away with it without someone coming to her aid within seconds, and that was a luxury that she hadn’t had before, and had the marks to prove it.

It had been a late afternoon when after a rather troubled teen had lashed out that Steve had found her in her office with the door ajar, the office in disarray, and her unconscious on the floor with fresh bruises in various places and a pair of scissors embedded in her thigh.

Not long after she had been finally released from the hospital, that she accepted the job offer from SHIELD.

“No matter what, if nothing else, I will always protect you, okay Doc?”

That had been Steve’s promise, but where was he now? Wasn’t he supposed to save her from all of this? Wasn’t he supposed to break down the door, shield in hand, and save her? Wasn’t that what he had promised?

But it had already been three days.

Maybe she wasn’t that important after all.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Winter stared at the open flame that stood between him and Red -that’s what the others called her, when they weren’t laughing and calling her ‘Doc’, though why that would be funny, he just couldn’t understand. For a moment, he was mesmerized by the way the flames danced and glowed and relished in the warmth that radiated off of it, but his jaw nearly fell slack when he looked up and took in the expression on her face.

There was a smile there. There was peace written across her face as she stared intently at the fire in front of her. She didn’t shiver. She didn’t cry. She simply smiled as though her neck and wrists were not horridly bruised, as though nothing had happened over the course of the last few days. She almost seemed like a different person to him, one he had never met before.

“Thanks…” Her voice was hoarse and quiet, but calm, and his jaw clenched in response at her misplaced gratitude, her blind trust and the forgiveness that was so plainly written in her eyes as they finally looked up at him. She thought he had done this for her, to help her…

“Nyet,” came his blunt, and short reply. Her warm, grateful gaze quickly turned cold with a fear that he was far more familiar with, and for a moment, he regretted causing that change in her, for losing that almost adoring look that she gave him. He couldn’t remember any time anyone had looked on him like that. But that simple word from his lips had been all it had taken for her to shrink back against her chair and try as best as she could to shrink from him as his metal hand lifted to rest in the heart of the open flames.

His gaze never left her as her instinctual fear turned to morbid curiosity that drew her out of her shell for only a moment until her thoughts began to run with the possibilities and arrived at a dire and horrifying conclusion. He felt a sinking feeling in his stomach as he watched her thought process turn until she was squirming, trying and hoping to find some weakness in her restraints that she had somehow missed before, but to no avail.

“Access Codes. Now.”

His voice sounded more like a plea to his own ears than the threatening bark it had been the days before. Didn’t she know that with that simple answer, this would all be over? They didn’t have to cross this bridge? She could make it all so easy on herself and escape this agony if she would only tell him what his masters needed to know. Obedience was so much better than fighting it. He had memories and scars that attested to that end and had learned his lesson. She was so smart, so they said. How could she not choose to simply obey?

Slowly, taking his time as though he were stalking his prey, he walked around the side of the elevated, metal basin that held the burning logs, leaving his left hand in the flames until he moved around to the side of her chair, letting his metal fingers that now seemed to glow hover menacingly over the exposed skin of her arm while she squirmed, trying to pull her hand away from the intense heat that singed the blonde hair from her arms.

“Steve Rogers protection detail.”

But the only sounds to answer him was the crackle of the flames in front of her, and her own, hyperventilating breath. Inwardly, he sighed as he stepped behind her chair and lifted his metal hand dangerously close to her jaw as if to carefully caress the delicate skin.

“His weaknesses…” He could see how she trembled from this place above her, see how her hands shook and how rigid she was postured, and that same plea that had fueled his first demand returned with a word of its own: “… Please.”

He didn’t want to hurt her. If he could not kill her, she would live in pain forever, suffering at his masters’ hands with no reprieve. If she didn’t answer him with anything helpful, he would be forced to hurt her. Still, he continued circling her until he came back to stand at the side of the raised fire pit once more, extending his hand into the flames to ensure that it was as heated as possible. He stayed there for a moment, unable to look at her, knowing just what he would see in her eyes… Until… Just maybe…

Carefully, he moved to kneel over the drain between her feet, so that he was nearly eye level with her. His metal hand hovered in warning over the exposed skin of her upper right arm and whispered that plea once more: “Please.” Couldn’t she see? Couldn’t she tell that he had no desire to hurt her?

But his lips pursed together at the acceptance in her eyes, the dead, hopeless look that filled the dark green in her eyes. She wouldn’t answer him. She would take pain to protect the secrets and trust that had been instilled in her. It was honorable, but a sort of knot settled in his stomach knowing that he could not leave this room without either answers or proof trying to get them written in her skin.

“Shhhh…” Silent tears began to trail down her cheeks and his lips quirked into a frown at the sight as she tried so desperately to hold back a sob. “Shhhh…” His flesh hand came up to brush the tears away as his metal hand wrapped around the pale skin of her arm, making a sort of a sizzling sound.

And she screamed.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

They had been making fun of her all through the evening while he sat quietly, mimicking her screams as if it were some sort of joke. He did not see the joke in it. He could clearly remember her screams, every single one, until her vocal chords gave out and left her nearly silent. It was not funny to him.

Nor was it funny to Sasha, who had seemed pleased, and just commented “Mmm… The Captain will not like that we’ve damaged his little gem. How interesting. How much he’ll hate himself for all of this…”

It was nothing that made sense to Winter, but it was not his job to understand, it was his job to complete the mission as ordered.

But he could not seem to move his mind back to its quiet place that he usually could even during a mission. He was troubled, and the sight of her having fallen unconscious from the agony after the ordeal didn’t sit well with him. Nor did the fact that none of the others here seemed bothered that she had been given neither food nor water the entire time she had been here. Even he was now treated better than that. If he was to ensure that she did not die, that needed to change.

Using his ghost-like stealth, he snuck away from the crowd of Hydra agents to gather the things he needed.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

He had hoped she would remain asleep through most of the care that he took to applying medicine and ointment to the welted, burnt marks he left on her, but as was half way through applying the healing oil to the last of her burns, she finally stirred… In a moment of panic, he covered her mouth with his flesh and cool metal hands to stifle her scream as she seized and tried to get away from him.

“Shhhh.” If they were discovered now, they would both suffer, he for helping her, and she by being given to another to try and extract the information from her. He needed her to calm, to quiet and still so that he could help her.

It took several, long moments of her quietly sobbing with his hands clamped tightly over her mouth before she calmed enough that he dared release her. Tears had spilled all across her face and his hands and silently, he reached down to the supplies he had gathered and retrieved the small, slightly dirty cloth that he had stolen from the unguarded laundry and took gentle care to wipe her cheeks first before drying his own hands.

Next, he wordlessly refocused on finishing up attending to her burn, applying the healing ointment with extra care now that she was awake. He didn’t look up to face her while he worked, unable to bring him to see again that look of fear in her eyes that had been for him as she awoke. He was here to help her, and he could not bear to for her to look on him as a monster, even in this moment.

Time found her with her restraints opened so that she could eat, stand, stretch, and sleep. A flat pillow and pathetic blanket had been provided for that end, leaving her unsure of what he was doing or even why. She remembered the plea to his voice from before he had ever touched her with his branding hand. Had he been asking her to not force him to do this?

But his voice broke the silence with a question.

“Dr. Harvey or… Red? Your name?”

He seemed perplexed and concerned from where he sat by the wall, watchful like a sort of guard. Whether he was keeping her in, or keeping her safe from the others, she wasn’t sure, but maybe it was both.

She yawned once, curled up on the dirty floor with the pillow folded in half beneath her head and the blanket covering as much of her as she could as she answered him simply with: “My name is Ruby.”


	2. Two

“Captain, I’ve got the best people I can spare working on it, but I have more pressing issues like global security to take care of. I can’t just reassign all of SHIELD’s top resources to—”

“THAT’S NOT GOOD ENOUGH,” the frazzled blond bellowed at the stoic director as his fist came down on the metal desk with a reverberating thump with enough force to leave a sizable dent in the surface.

It had been eight days since he had had to take a rain check on the plans he had made with Dr. Harvey to help her train, due to his covert mission in Lithuania taking a few hours longer than predicted to complete.

Eight days since he had ridden into her apartment’s dim garage on his thundering motor cycle with a bag of Chinese takeout as an apology for being late when he found the pools of dried blood and the shoes he had bought her for Christmas on that pavement. At first, he had hoped he was wrong. That she had dropped them somehow and gone inside her apartment where he would find her curled up on the sofa watching some episode of Star Trek. However, as every one of the calls to her cellphone went straight to voicemail as he ran up the stairs, the growing sense of dread settled in.

But she was gone.

It had been eight days since his frantic fingers called Agent Romanoff on the high-tech phone that nearly cracked in his trembling hands as he barked over to her in a panic, “Natasha. Natasha she’s gone. Doc—Ruby. She’s gone. There’s blood everywhere, and she’s not answering her phone.”

The distinct sirens of SHIELD vehicles sounded nearby minutes later as Steve sat helplessly on the front step into the apartment building.

“None of the blood was hers! Each pool of blood was from someone else; your lab confirmed that. That means she was targeted, and kidnapped by god-knows-who, and she’s probably out there right now being—.” But Steve’s voice faltered and fell, unable to say that single word that brought unimaginable thoughts of her to his mind. She was too sweet for that. To kind for that. Too good for that kind of fate…

“Being tortured,” Fury interrupted without hesitation. “That is if at this point she is even still alive. The fact that we haven’t had any uptick in chatter, or action means that whatever information they needed out of her, she hasn’t given to them, and at this point, she’s probably been dead a while. The bad guys in the real world aren’t patient, Captain. She’s not coming back. And I’m sorry.”

Steve’s jaw visibly clenched as his hands tightened into fists that turned his knuckles white. His lips trembled with rage has he held back another outburst.

Fury was wrong. He had to be. She couldn’t be dead. She was alive. She had to be.

“I promised her she’d be safe when she joined SHIELD. I promised her that no matter what, she’d be protected here, and you turned your back on her. You put a target on her back and then sentenced her to die.”

“Captain, it’s not that—.” But whatever Fury had left to say wasn’t heard as the super soldier turned his back on the other man and stormed out of the secure office, ensuring that the door slammed hard enough to crack the cement wall it was secured to.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

“I need you to do something for me. An order, if you will.”

He was running out of ways to lie, and that frightened him. He could feel Sasha’s growing unrest about Ruby’s insistent silence, even if his master seemed to oddly respect her strength and resolve to protect those she clearly cared deeply. They both had seen people give in far sooner and under far less duress than they had put her through. She was like a rose that endured through a harsh winter, still blooming and surviving despite the killer frost. It was awe inspiring to the Asset, almost beautiful in its own way, and he was grateful he was under orders to ensure that she lived through it all. It would be such a waste to destroy something with such a unique beauty to it.

A part of him wondered if anyone had ever sought to protect him and defend him as fiercely as she did for her Steve, her friend. Had anyone ever called him their friend before? But those were thoughts and questions he didn’t dare truly pry into, out of fear where they would lead. It was better to not think about it at all.

“Our contacts inside SHIELD have informed us that our guest has been declared dead. SHIELD fabricated a car crash and a terribly burnt corpse for her loved ones to bury. No, we will not be threatening her with her loved ones. I want her eventual loyalty, not for her to cooperate with the full intent to devise a means of escape once she seems to have earned enough trust. However, our dear Captain needs… Well, lets call it a reality check to her status.”

Sasha handed the Asset a plain, white envelope with the known address for Avenger’s Tower printed on it… And Steve Rogers name. “You know the drill. Just enough to get their attention.”

A stiff nod was the only response Winter made, before vanishing back out the door of the office and heading down the hall. A part of him looked at the envelope in disgust, jaw set tensely, as his mind begged his metal fingers to crumple it… But they wouldn’t obey. He had orders, and orders needed to get obeyed.

His footsteps carried him loudly down the hallway that lead to the door with the iron room that he spent most of his time in. The agent standing guard outside eyed Winter coldly before standing to unlock the door and let the Asset in.

She was asleep, her head canted slightly to the side as her chin found a resting place on the cuff around her neck. She looked peaceful again, and for a moment, he stood in the darkness provided in the room and simply stared again. She stood out amongst the gloom and depravity of the room… Like a white rose in a blood-spattered room… An image from his own memory.

And then the lock clicked loudly shut, jarring her harshly awake with the frightened gasp that he had grown far too familiar to. She feared him during the day. During the day, he hurt her, and today would prove to be no different. They both knew that. It was what he was here to do, and what he would continue to do until she provided the answers that his masters needed.

Silently, he wandered over to the stained, metal table with similar restraints to the ones on her chair and set down the addressed envelope before unsheathing the knife at his hip with an audible shing.

Her flinch and the way she tensed told almost as vivid a story as her frantic heartbeat that he could see from the way her stained shirt shuddered rhythmically over her chest. She was calculating and was not prepared for what answers she was coming up with. She had known change would come eventually, the stakes would be raised in order to get her to talk, and she terrified.  
He gave her a moment to think in silence as he slowly walked back over to her side and crouched down to be on her level, knowing she would not look up at him. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing the terror in her eyes, or risk seeing the ice in his, as she had made the mistake of doing before. She was learning the steps to this dance, even when the music was changed.

“You can’t stay silent forever.” His flesh hand lifted to brush the sweat-coated locks of blonde hair that fell around her face behind her ear, letting his flesh fingertips brush against the soft skin of her cheekbone for just a moment before she flinched, causing him to withdraw for just a moment.

“But I am sorry.”

The blade shifted from his metal hand to his flesh one and in one fluid motion, his stood, metal fingers gripping her by the jaw tightly to hold her head harshly still against the back of the chair. His flesh hand came up knife in hand, faltering not even once as the blade dug into the flesh of her scalp.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

All she knew was that he was gone. Winter, as he asked her to call him. He had left in the morning as he always did, and no one had returned until that night when an agent she had never seen before brought in a bottle of water and bowl of cold, but cooked rice. He only stayed long enough to watch her eat, then left.

“Steve… He’s in an apartment in DC. The Jefferson Building. Eighth floor. The door at the end of the hall on the right. He’s… He’s got an undercover bodyguard living as his next-door neighbor. Agent 13 of SHIELD’s Special Service.”

Winter had been right. She couldn’t stay silent forever. She talked.

Out of all the things she could have given them, that was the least harmful. She knew Steve could take care of himself. SHIELD would fix it. He would be safe even if she gave that up. However, she still felt sick to her stomach as though she had betrayed her friend… But one can only be expected to withstand having a blade carve your scarred skin so deep until you can’t take much more. Eventually, you talk just to get it to stop.

And she had.

Winter had taken his prize from her head and sealed it away in the envelope as her blood audibly gurgled down the drain between her feet. Her head fell to the side, dizzy from the blood loss and the fatigue of it all in that brief moment of peace before he returned to her side with the med kit he carried and only ever used the seemingly magic burn ointment before. Only this time, he was armed with a needle and thread.

Those wounds had mostly healed by the time she heard the panic coming from down the hall, and she barely had time to sit up from her place in the far corner of the cell where she shackles attached to the wall before her door burst open and Sasha came in with an austere look on his face.

The feeble blanket that had fallen she tugged up to her shoulders as if she could hide behind it and they would leave her be, but the man only snapped his fingers and said “Release her. She comes with us.”

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

What. A. Headache.

Leave it to Alexander Peirce to be too ambitious and too hasty, rather than bide his time and make opportune moves when possible and inconspicuous. Leave it to Alexander Peirce to under years of work. He deserved the death he got, at least in Sasha’s opinion. Good riddance.

The Asset had been temporarily loaned to the American to oversee Captain America being brought down. Dr. Harvey had given little, but enough information to ensure that that could be done without any foreseeable hiccup, but Pierce had aimed for a bigger target and had opted to take down Nicholas Fury instead, resulting an absolute mess in the Potomac, and decades of Hydra operatives that had been hidden in various power spots of society being exposed and arrested after Natalia Romanov dumped all of SHIELD’s and Hydra’s files onto the internet.

Well, all the files that had been kept with SHIELD.

That didn’t include himself and the good Dr. Harvey’s knowledge of the inner mental workings of those so-called Avengers. She had had the good sense to not keep a digital file on the SHIELD mainframe of her assessment of each of her clients. She kept notebooks, all of which had been burned at her faked death.

At least for the time being, she was still worth more to him alive. She knew things that he needed and had no other easy way to get.

He knew that the Asset would return to him eventually. It was in his base programming to return to his core handler: Sasha Anosov. So even with Pierce’s ridiculous solution to the Winter Soldier’s original memories breaking through, due to his unnecessary access to Steve Rogers—why in God’s name, that man allowed the Fist of Hydra to even speak to Captain America given the circumstances was absolutely unfathomable—which was to wipe him and start over, Sasha knew his prized possession would come back to him eventually.

In the meantime, they would have to move. The current location of where Sasha’s operation had been leaked, and it was only a matter of time before law enforcement or the damned Avengers came bursting down his door and he wasn’t quite ready for that.

Oh well, just a minor setback. One they would recover from in time.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

It had been Pepper who had brought up the box of mail and left it on Tony’s desk to go through, much to his chagrin, with a threat of what wouldn’t happen later that night if he didn’t clear through it all by the time she returned.

Most of the mail had been advertisements, credit card applications for various people, thank-you letters… All of which were tossed into the fire place one by one while Jarvis warned him about smoke alarms. But one letter in particular caught his eye and made him pause. It wasn’t post-marked and had a stain on the front that couldn’t be from a coffee mug. But the most jarring factor was that it was addressed to Steve.

Most people would have taken several moments to deliberate about opening someone else’s mail, but Stark was not one of them. What was the worst that Cap was going to do to him? Give him a stern “Now Tony, you know I don’t appreciate you going through my mail?” Like that would ever work.

Easily, he slipped his letter-opener through the end, ripping the paper before dumping the contents into his hand… That he then dropped on the ground with a grunt of disgust.

“Jarvis!”

“Yes, Mr. Stark?”

“Where the hell did this letter come from?”

“Unknown. Based on the fact that it was near the bottom of the mail bin, I would assume it arrived two days ago. I’ll go through the video logs and see if I can determine who and when.”

The clump of blood-covered blonde hair still sat on the floor before Tony grabbed it with a napkin with a gag.

“Shall I inform Captain Rogers of this letter?”

“No… Not yet. I want you to run the DNA off of this thing, date it, whatever. Then once we know what we’re dealing with, I’ll tell him.”

“Ah. Afraid it’s another episode of Ms. Callahan?”

At that name, Tony visibly shuddered… And gagged again at the though of the woman who used to mail parts of her body that she severed to him, as tokens of her affection. Toe nails, hair, blood, and eventually her own ear.

“Capsicle isn’t as aware of the crazy fangirls of this world, and I’d like to be able to give him the ability to sleep well at night without feeling like one of them is trying to crawl into his window. If it’s a Crazy Callahan all over again, then I’ll handle it myself.”

“And if it’s not?”

That made Tony pause as he stood in the elevator, his empty hand reaching for the bio-lab button. His face faltered and he looked at the clump of blonde hair once more, his lips pursing into a tight line as he mulled over his options. He almost hoped it was a crazy stalker for Steve. The alternative to that was… Whoever she was, this woman didn’t part with this willingly.

“We’ll handle it appropriately. Until then, you don’t tell anyone else about this. Not even Pepper.”

……………………………………………………………………………………….

After a week, Tony had much forgotten about the clump of blood-covered hair that had been mailed to Steve. He had left Jarvis to check every DNA database known to man and moved on with his life. Without anybody else to bring up the subject, other things took precedence when it came to Tony’s attention... And after a week, the fact that Nat had successfully dumped all of SHIELD and HYDRA’s secrets onto the internet filled his conniving heart with glee.

Within moments, he was starring in front of his holographic screens downloading as much of the intel as he could get his hands on. He had been trying for months to hack back into SHIELD’s servers after the helicarrier and been blocked at every turn, much to his annoyance. Now, it was all out there for him and he didn’t even have to—.

“Mr. Stark?”

An annoyed groan sounded from the billionaire as he forced himself to mute the various video feeds and pause the scrolling screens of intel coming in. “What on earth could be more important than what I’m doing right now, Jarvis?”

“Well sir, you asked me to alert you when we got a hit on the DNA off the hair that had been mailed to Captain Rogers.”

Now that had Tony’s full attention. With a quick wave of his hand, the various feeds vanished leaving only one, showing the DNA from the lab and the DNA it matched to.

“We only NOW are getting a match? What took so long?”

“Her DNA was only ever filed with SHIELD, no where else. I was only able to find a match once—.”

“—Once Nat dumped all of their files into the public domain,” Tony interrupted swiftly. But that fact sobered him. There were too many pieces of a puzzle falling into place and he was beginning to think they were about to paint a picture he didn’t want to see. “Jarvis, who am I looking at?”

All at once, a familiar face and name popped up on the screen with the DNA, along with various files… And Jarvis hesitated.

“Dr. Ruby Harvey. And by the level of decay on the blood in her hair… It was only a week and a half old. That means—.”

“—She’s alive.” It was the only explanation. Steve had told him the truth behind the lie that SHIELD had publicized, and Tony knew that the Captain blamed himself for her disappearance, despite his and everyone else’s efforts to convince him otherwise.

“Find Steve. Now.”

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

He didn’t understand.

It had taken him two weeks to find his master, but he had done it.  
He had expected to be punished, or to go back on ice. The man named Sasha was clearly upset with the failure of the mission, but the anger and disappointment was at someone named Pierce that, the Asset was certain he had never heard of before. Instead, he was given orders.

“I have a valuable asset here. She’s not like you. She has information, and I need her safe from others here and safe from herself. You are to ensure that she doesn’t get hurt by anyone for the time being.”

Those were simple orders but… they felt odd.

She was not restrained when he was taken to her secure holding cell. She was left free to wander about the room that reeked of torture and death. However, that was not what stunned him. The moment the door closed and locked, rousing her from her seemingly peaceful sleep, she stared at him as if she had seen a ghost before a smile erupted on her face.

Within a moment, the tattered blanket she had had was tossed aside and she rushed across the room to gather him into what he figured was as tight of an embrace as she could manage. Flashes of the image of a white rose in a blood-splattered room crossed his mind seeing her look so bright and cheery in a place such as this.

“You’re alright. Oh, I thought you were dead, that I’d never see you again. They wouldn’t tell me anything. You left and never came back and I was so worried…”

Her voice faltered with doubt and her arms fell slack around him until she quietly, and cautiously took a step back from him, looking almost hurt at how he had failed to respond to how she had anticipated at their interaction.

But how was he supposed to respond? How did she know him? He had never met her before. She had no name, no place in his memory.

“Winter… It’s me. Ruby…”

Her voice cracked and she took another step back closer to the single light in the room, illuminating what he had missed in the moment before.

She was clad in a pair of surprisingly clean shorts and loose shirt, that seemed too large for her, but left her arms and legs exposed, and his brows furrowed as his pointed gaze traveled over her. Her legs had four, distinct scars from stab wounds that were in the end process of healing, but most notably were the two, healed burns in the shape of handprints that adorned her upper arms and her calves, and several similar burns down her forearms. In his mind, he could hear the echoes of screams, and the smell of burning flesh…

Focused, he took an unconscious step forward, reaching out his flesh hand in confusion to trace along the scarred skin. She had been tortured. Repeatedly. That much he could tell. Though why anyone would torture someone so innocent looking as she did confused him. No wonder he had been ordered to protect her. She needed it.

“Roza…” The name was just above a whisper as it fell from his lips. His hand wandered of it’s own accord, and he felt her stiffen beneath his touch, but it did not dissuade him, but eventually, his fingers brushed across the puckered line buried in her scalp at the side of her head that they had been looking for. Another scar.

“No… My name is Ruby. Don’t you remember me?”

But her question fell on deaf ears as he continued to study her, seemingly lost in the though as the stab wounds on her legs were examined next… Until he noted her shivering.

“I don’t understand… Winter, please. What did they do to you?”

“Moya Roza…” His brows furrowed as he slowly returned to his full height, staring intently at her face. He didn’t understand. Why did she call him Winter? He had no name. Or was he Bucky? James? Winter? The Asset? Too many questions that he did not have answers to, but only one mattered to him in this moment. “Who hurt you like this?”

Her face went blank and he watched as she swallowed heavily as unshed tears brimmed in her eyes. His jaw set, ready for her answer so he knew who to protect her from the most

“You did. Don’t you remember me?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Roza = Rose  
> Moya Roza = My Rose.


	3. Three

She still thought about Steve often. Not as often as she had in the beginning – she had long since abandoned her hopes and dreams of him breaking down the door, his shield gleaming in the dim light as he rescued her – of her time in this real-life hell, but he was still with her in her thoughts. Did he miss her? Had he ever looked for her? Did he know, or at least guess what had happened to her or had he been as clueless to her fate as he had been about the rumors that circulated around them? Did he blame himself for it all? Had he imagined rescuing her as many times as she had imagined being rescued?

Did he think her dead?

Had he forgiven himself for it all yet?

A long time ago, he had asked similar questions about the fates of Bucky and Peggy, regret and ‘what ifs’ shining a light on the guilt he held inside for not being able to save them, or even be there for his best girl. She had listened patiently as he finally found the words to unload the burden he bore with words, rather than with punching bags in the early hours of the morning. However, she had ultimately told him that those questions would never amount to anything. They could never change what had happened, or what could happen. Those questions would only eat him alive until all he had was guilt and regret tinted memories of people who had loved him, and they deserved better than that.

She remembered that night with fondness. In the weeks prior, he hadn’t truly opened up, beyond simple pleasantries, and she felt he only played along with all because she was a lady, and if there was one thing Steve Rogers would never do, it would be to intentionally disrespect and offend a lady. However, in the afternoon before, he had left his wallet in her office, before leaving, and she had chased after him all the way down to the garage until she had fallen over gasping for air just as he was climbing onto his bike, caught in the throes of an asthma attack.

He, of course, had sprung into action, digging through her purse that she had dropped as her lungs betrayed her and refused to cooperate. Easily, he retrieved the red inhaler that she had been unable to locate. Steve had kept an arm around her as they sat together on the dirty garage floor while she slowly regained her ability to breathe. He never questioned, just calmed and tried to help her find a steady breathing pattern, explaining that Bucky used to do the same for him back before the serum. Eventually, with a sheepish grin, she pulled out the slim wallet from her back pocket and handed it over to him with a simple, “You left this in my office. Next time, jog a little slower for me, yeah?”

And then, for the first time in her presence, he laughed.

All she had now were those memories to keep her company.

In her mind, he was happy. He had grieved for her, and then moved on with his life. He still smiled, and laughed as easily as he had done with her. He saved the world one fight at a time and only remembered her fondly.

She knew better than to believe that, but she told herself the lie anyway.

And maybe if she told it enough, she’d even believe it one day.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

He wouldn’t touch her. Summer had turned to fall, and the chill of Winter could already be felt in areas of the base, but not once had he dared lay a finger on her head.

He had watched as her newest of injuries slowly became scars and had winced as she had removed the stitches he had sewn, or so she had told him, but never did he touch. He didn’t dare.

It had been his hands that had hurt her so, and his orders were to protect her from harm, so he protected her from himself.

She didn’t talk much at first, and he almost preferred it that way, but the look in her eyes, that pained look of wanting to say something, but holding herself back began to eat away at him. He could always tell what people wanted, what people were thinking, but she was a mystery to him. Nothing she did made sense in a way that seemed logical to him. He had clearly hurt her, yet she looked at him with a sort of longing, as though he was someone she had once been close to, but now was just left with a shell of a reminder to deal with. She should fear him, and yet she didn’t. She should abhor him, yet she was so kind to him. She made no sense to him.

“Do you have a name?”

Her voice was sheepish and quiet as she glanced at him from her far corner where her stained bedroll lay. Her scarred arms were protectively wrapped around her legs so that they were hugged closely to her chest, a gesture he realized that was in order to comfort herself, not protect herself from him. She was inching into territory that she was unsure how he would respond to, and she was reacting with the only cautionary way she knew how to.

“No.” Well, that wasn’t right either. The blond man – Steve – had called him many names that made his brain hurt. He didn’t want any of them. They were not his names. They couldn’t be. He didn’t want them to be. He was an asset. He had no name. But… The way her expression fell in disappointment made his brows furrow.

She was trying to be nice.

No one else was ever nice to him.

“I am not your… Winter.” That much was certain. Whomever she had known, he was no longer. However… “But, I like… Jay.”

Not James, as his target had called him, but Jay. He could be Jay.

And it was the smile on her face.

“Jay…” She tested the name out on her quirked lips, staring at his face intently as if she was trying to assign the name to go with his face, and he found that having such a direct and focused gaze upon him made his face feel warm. “Can I ask you a question?”

His brows furrowed together, unsure whether or not he truly was prepared to answer whatever question she might have for him. Prior to this moment, and that first day, the only words said between them were the daily thanks she gave for the food he brought for her and when he told her to sleep.

“Da.”

He watched curiously as she nibbled on her bottom lip as she mustered up whatever courage she seemed to need in order to voice her question, but made no effort to encourage her, content to simply wait.  
“Every night you call me ‘Moya Roza.’ What does that mean?”

His head tilted to the side, staring at her silently for a moment that was definitely longer than comfortable for her before answering her. “My Rose.” He paused, waiting for his answer to sink in, but the look of further confusion on her face forced him to find the words to explain. “You… You don’t fit here. Too fragile, too pretty, too innocent for this place. Like a rose.”

A white rose in a blood-stained room…

The look of confusion slowly faded from her eyes as she replayed his answer over in her mind and slowly accepted his explanation, even if it was incomplete, and he was again rewarded with that rare smile she had. How she could find any reason to smile in this place, he did not know. However, those musings were abandoned to the corner of his mind as he watched her shiver violently and try to curl her arms tighter around her legs.

Only then did he truly feel foolish. He had watched over the passing weeks as she spent more time curled up into that little ball, with the thin blanket wrapped around her abused frame, assuming she was shielding herself from him. However, with that vicious tremble did he finally note how often she seemed to shudder, mistakenly assuming she was afraid of him.

But that had never been the case at all.

She was cold.

His brows furrowed in concern as his gaze locked onto her. She was suffering. She had been suffering all this time and he had missed it. He was supposed to protect her from harm and he had failed to see her discomfort that was right in front of him.

Why he was surprised by it all, he was unsure, after all, there was no heating in this room, by design. Everyone else had long since dawned wearing thick coats, even returning with flecks of snow in their hair that quickly melted. And yet, she had been left here, with only the shorts, thin shirt, and blanket to try and keep warm.

And it was not enough.

“You are cold.” A statement, not a question, and she didn’t even attempt to dignify it with a response. Instead, she opted to try and ignore him.

A heavy sigh passed from his lips. Why was she always stubborn? She could get relief so much easier if she only cooperated… But then she had never simply cooperated in the past. Though, how he knew that, he was unsure.

Silently, he stood, careful to remove the hidden weapons that were tucked away in his clothes – after all, they could hurt her, and his duty was to protect her – and left them in a pile on the floor. The fastens on his leather jacket were undone and the leather slid from his arms. Only then, without the protective layer could he feel the true chill in the cell, causing him to frown. She had so little. Why had she not spoken up sooner?

‘She feared that would have a price,’ answered the voice in his head sadly.

His jaw clenched at that thought, as he stepped towards her, jacket hanging in his metal hand, but still she would not look up at him. With another, heavy sigh, he crouched down beside her, suddenly finding the words that he needed felt heavy and awkward.

“You are cold,” he repeated gently, slowly wrapping his warm jacket around her frame in a gesture of good faith. Thankfully, she neither recoiled, nor shrugged off his jacket, solidifying his resolve. “Let me keep you warm. Let me help.”

Had she refused, he would have retreated instantly, sure to never press the matter again. However, she simply nodded, accommodating him as he adjusted them both. His shirt had been shed too, ripped into two pieces before wrapping them around her feet in a crude form of sock. His jacket, she wore backwards, allowing him to curl around her back protectively as they laid down on the bedroll, his warm skin combatting her icy skin. The blanket was wrapped around her legs securely, attempting to make up for her lack of proper pants while his metal arm curled under the pathetic pillow protectively. Lastly, his flesh arm wrapped around her torso. Her frozen hands greedily sought out his forearm and the warmth that emanated from him.

Truth be told, he hated the cold. It gave him flashes of an icy room that put him to sleep. Whenever they awoke him from the ice, it always made him sick, but with her so tightly pressed against him, a slight sense of satisfaction washed over him when he finally felt her muscles that had been trembling to try and produce some sort of heat finally relax and unclench.

“Jay?” There was no fear in her voice this time. No tentative edge to it, just an unfamiliar sense of contentment. “Thanks.”

She sounded exhausted, and he figured she ought to have been. It was well after when he had returned with dinner, so no doubt the sun had set hours ago. However, the ease to her tone couldn’t be placed solely in fatigue. She was comfortable. She felt safe.

Briefly, the corner of his lips quirked into a ghost of a smile while his flesh hand felt the thrum of her heart in her chest slow gradually. Flashes of memory of a woman standing over his before kissing him on the cheek when he was very young played through his mind. It was a happy memory, and he remembered feeling comforted and content at the gesture. The woman made him feel safe.

He stared at her shoulders for only a moment as his resolve settled. He wanted her to feel safe. He was supposed to protect her, to keep her safe. But he wanted her to feel as happy as he had in his memory, as comforted by himself as he had by the woman. So slowly, without warning, he craned his neck to press his lips to the cool skin of her cheek.

As soft as a rose petal too…

“Sleep. I’ll be here…” His whisper died for only a moment as he focused before uttering one word he never had before:

“Ruby.”


	4. Four

“Finally.”

It had taken nearly a year to finally recover all of the progress that Pierce had undone by wiping the Asset. They had been so close before, and then that blunder happened, setting Sasha’s plans back to square one.

It was almost disgusting, watching the two of them on the camera, how Hydra’s pride and joy curled around her protectively like a German Shepard protecting a fluffy kitten. Once the Asset had finally gotten over his misconstrued ideas that he was the current threat to Dr. Harvey and had bridged that touch barrier, the rest had happened all to easily. She was a bewitching creature, to be sure. Even amongst the cruelty she was subjected to, there was always a glow of hope around her. She was unsullied, pure of heart. It was no mystery to Sasha why those that she had been forced to leave behind cared so deeply and trusted her so much. There was no malice to what she did and her ability to forgive was endless.

Were he a lesser man, even he would have sought to be her savior, just as the Asset had become. In another life, he might even have kept her at his side, rather than locked away. She would have been his trusted companion in this convoluted chess game. But, she was the White King, the key to the so-called Avenger’s undoing, and he was the Black Queen, able to move about and control the flow of power as he pleased.

The attachment was of no true consequence. It would only take one wipe and once again, the infamous Winter Solder would be restored to his factory defaults, as it were, with no memory of her or his weakness for her.

But it still had the taste of annoyance in his mind.

Or was it envy?

With a grunt of frustration, he pushed himself away from the desk where a live feed from her cell played, showing a blonde laughing in the lap of the Asset as she traced the plating on his metal arm. It was high time to finally begin getting what he truly needed from her. Their little honeymoon phase was coming to an end.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

She was alive.

It was the only thing he knew at this point. She was out there somewhere, breathing.

Steve had awoken in the hospital, shaken, broken. Everything hurt in ways that it hadn’t in a long time. He had taken a beating, and he had let Bucky do whatever he needed to. After everything, what Steve would never admit to another soul was that after loosing Ruby, he couldn’t go through losing Bucky all over again. He wasn’t strong enough for that. If Bucky was going to kill him, Steve was going to let him. It would be better that way.

Well, maybe he would have admitted that to Ruby.

Sam had been sitting there, some track by Marvin Gaye playing that Steve didn’t recognize in the plain, modern hospital room. After another private joke, he pulled out his phone, sending off a text that Steve hadn’t been able to read. There was a look in Sam’s eyes that Steve couldn’t place, like he was trying to hold on so desperately to a secret, and a good one at that. But the only explanation Sam offered when Steve looked at him funny was a simple, “He wants to tell you himself.”

Within ten minutes, Tony, clad in a full suit, walked through the door wearing a smug grin and with that same look in his eyes that Sam had.

“Well, it seems that your abilities to destroy buildings crawling with Hydra didn’t just stay in Nazi Germany. But hey, if I know anyone who needs their place obliterated, I’ll send you their way.”

Steve managed a weak smile at that, and almost would have chuckled, if his abdomen didn’t hurt simply at the thought. After all, he had been shot… Twice? Three times? He didn’t even remember at this point.

“So were you just so worried about me that you wanted to see me the moment I woke, or are you gonna finally tell me why both you and Sam look like you’re about to explode? Or even how you two know each other?”

Sam then broke into a full grin, while Tony got oddly sober. Wordlessly, Stark walked around to the others side of Steve’s hospital bed and sat on the plain chair there before reaching into his suit coat to pull out a clear plastic bag with an opened envelop and clump of blonde hair with dried blood on it. Carefully, he set it on the bed for Steve to take before finally, properly answering his question.

“That was sent to Avengers Tower a little over two weeks ago, addressed to you. It wasn’t post-marked and had been hand delivered. I wasn’t going to say anything until I knew what it was just in case it was some crazy fangirl trying to show her love. I had Jarvis running the DNA through every database on the planet, but I couldn’t get a hit until Natasha did me the favor of dumping all of SHIELD’s files out onto the internet.”

He waited, letting Steve have the moment to take in what he was telling him. Steve’s fingers gently traced over the ‘proof’ that Tony had offered, thinly veiled hope and despair mixing together on his face.

“Who. Tell me, Tony. Who is it?”

“You know the answer to that one, Cap.” Stark’s voice became gentle a slight smile forming on his lips. “Ruby Harvey. Jarvis was able to date the DNA too. It was only four days old when it was delivered. Someone wanted you to know she’s still alive.”

For a long while, Steve said nothing. He simply breathed evenly, staring intently at the bag in his hands.

She was alive. After all this time, she was still alive. She was out there somewhere.

‘Hey, no matter what happens, I will keep you safe. I promise.’

His own words from the past had haunted him since her disappearance. It had been his fault for cancelling, his fault for being late. He had promised her she would be safe in this life, that nothing would ever happen to her and that he would make certain of it. It was a promise he had broken. Once again, he had been too late. Too late to keep his promise, too late to keep her safe.

Her absence in his life had been poignant and sharp. All of the sudden, the only person that he found he could completely be himself around was gone. She was the only one that had appreciated his taste in music, and together, they had used the internet to try and finally learn how to swing dance – several nights in his apartment with his record player and the furniture pushed back against the walls had been testaments to that end. Her comfort, her laughter… Her smile. In an instant, it had all been gone, and he had never truly found a way to fill those holes.

And they hurt.

“She’s alive…” Those words barely felt real as he finally said them.

But Tony finished his sentence. “And we’re going to find her Steve. We’re going to bring her home.”

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

The scene before him made him smile.

There was genuine fear in her eyes for the first time since she had awoken, fresh, unscarred, and completely unaware of her fate.

He hadn’t wanted to be there while the agents burst in, tearing the two apart. His Russian wasn’t pristine, and he wanted the orders for the Winter Soldier to be barked with precision so that he didn’t even try to resist. However, he would probably watch the replay on his laptop later in his office for his own satisfaction. She would resist, fight it as best she could, but with how little they fed her and how feeble she had become, she wouldn’t put up very much of a fight. But oh, the look in her eyes when she saw her dear ‘Jay’ willingly allow himself to be chained to the wall, wrists above his head and feet apart so that he would be completely immobile as she was locked back into the chair that had been left abandoned for the passing months… Oh, that would be glorious.

“Hello dear, it’s been a while hasn’t it?” Sasha drolled, proudly strolling into the room. “Did you think that I was just going to let you sit here as a guest without requiring something from you sooner or later? Hmm?”

She was silent, of course. That hint of fear was hidden behind the loathing that burned in her eyes, and he smirked. She was still, oh so stubborn after all this time, but there was so much she didn’t know. “Still not talking to me? Shame. I have a friend here who claims that you have a lovely singing voice.”

Footsteps from behind him sounded, but Sasha never turned. He was horribly mangled, and it had taken all of Sasha’s resources to get the man from fried alive to resembling a functional human being again – goodness, the bargains he had had to make with the experimental research department to get his hands on the synthesized serum they had developed from the DNA of a man named Logan to stimulate advanced healing again had been quite ridiculous – but he knew the effect would be quite worth the cost.

“I believe you are familiar with Brock Rumlow, yes?”

Sasha took one step to the side, to let her see the obvious monster that Rumlow had become, but his gaze never left her, relishing in the terror on her face, then the horror at the implications of Rumlow’s presence here.

“Yes, I believe I need to catch you up to speed on some things, don’t I? You’re several months behind on some of the happenings of the world. SHIELD is no more, well, not at least as you know it. Alexander Pierce decided to try and take down Fury, rather than just Captain America, as I had told him to, thanks to the information you so graciously provided. But what your good Captain found was that an entire branch of Hydra was a part of SHIELD. Mr. Rumlow and his friends, for example. So, Captain Rogers saw fit to do away with it all, and well, the Tri-Skeleton is still a mess in the Potomac, and all of SHIELD’s digital files were released onto the internet. Your guard dog here was assigned to that mission, and due to Pierces idiocy and failure to properly account for all possible outcomes, a significant number of my plans were forced to take a few backsteps. But, now we finally are all caught up to where we should be now.”

He sounded less like a smug mastermind, and more like a calculated business man, updating a coworker on the status and developments of a critical business deal, treating the details and lives involved as impersonally as numbers on a page.

Rumlow stepped over, and based on the shudder that ran from her head to her toes, he could only assume that the monster had smiled at her.

Oh, this was going to be too easy.

In two simple steps, Sasha crossed the distance between himself and Dr. Harvey, keeping his gaze on his cuffs while he rolled them up to his elbows – this could get messy, and he wasn’t in the mood to have to replace another, expensive shirt. “Now, this is how this is going to go, darling. You are going to answer my questions, or my friend Rumlow will take it out on your precious Jay. Do you understand? As inconvenient as it would be, I should warn you, that Rumlow has a tendency to take things a bit too far, and there’s a chance that Jay might not survive this, so I would be very quick to answer, if I were you.”

The fear returned to her eyes, and for a moment, Sasha lost himself to them as his thumb traced along the tender line of her jaw almost affectionately. Quietly, he stepped behind her, his hand wandering the contours of her face until they combed her lank locks behind her ear carefully.

“Now… I need you to tell me what haunts each of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes minds, their darkest dreams that keep them from sleeping at night. Tony Stark, Natasha Romanoff, Thor of Asgard, Bruce Banner, and of course, Steven Rogers. And please remember, time is of the essence…”

And it was only then did he retrieve the slim knife that always was tucked away hidden on his person. He bent over the back of the iron chair and pressed his lips to the other side of her head above her ear so that he could hold her completely still as he pressed the tip of the blade threateningly against the hollow of her neck before whispering, “…for both of your sakes.”

And oh, the screaming.

Glorious.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Inside, he had writhed, wanting nothing more than to yank the metal cuffs around his wrists and ankles free from the wall, and break every bone in his Master’s body. Internally, he seethed as Sasha pressed his lips over and over to her head in the ways only Jay had ever done. In his mind, he plunged that knife into Sasha’s body, two-fold for every mark he had left on her.

But in reality, he did nothing.

He did nothing every time she screamed. He didn’t fight it as mishappen one called Rumlow beat him with the metal knuckles on his fists or when he sent electric volts coursing through his body. He didn’t even spit as the blood pooled in his mouth. He had orders. Orders were to be followed. He was to do nothing.

And so, he did nothing.

He knew by the sounds, that Sasha was done. She had given him what he wanted, and so there was no need to linger. One by one, the other men left, until the last one freed Jay before leaving and locking the cell door once more.

His knees buckled from the pain once they were finally alone once more, and his metal hand planted on the floor in time to catch his fall. He coughed, the metallic liquid that had only been trickling from the corner of his lips finally spewing across the floor. He knew that he would recover quickly, he had been punished before, and those injuries had healed fully within a day, but he had still been weak and in agony right after. This time was proving to be no different.

He was almost lost in his moment, but the dripping sound of the drain to his left made his head lift sharply to see her slumped body still locked in that damned chair.

“Moya Roza…” His own pain was pushed to the back of his mind, with a more demanding need taking hold of his every thought. His jaw set with concern as he worked to crawl over to her, popping the restraints on the chair open one by one with his metal hand while his trembling, flesh fingers pressed earnestly to her neck to ensure that she did still have a pulse.

Carefully, he pulled her out of the chair, earning a weak moan from her as he shushed her. His arms, metal and flesh curled around her tightly, holding her protectively to his chest as he cradled her in his lap, gently rocking back and forth.

She had talked.

After all he had done to her from when he couldn’t remember, she had only given half an answer. Written in her skin had been a tale of torture that she had endured without cracking, but this time she had talked. And she had talked to save him. His mind was reeling as he tried to comprehend the idea that he could matter so much to someone that she would give up that which she had held most dear to try and save him. He was important. He mattered. She cared.

But there was sinking feeling that came with the realization. She had finally broken. They had finally found her weakness. This strange, hopeful girl who had so fiercely protected those she had left behind had finally given them up… And it made him sad. He was the reason she had broken, why she had betrayed the trust of her friends… He was the price she could not pay.

His lips curled into a frown at the assault of emotions. How could he feel so elated and devastated at the same time? How could he feel so guilty and carefree at once?

A warm wetness pressed against his stomach, drawing him back out of his confusing reverie and into the immediate need of the moment. The drip that had captured his attention once before had come from somewhere, and it couldn’t have been from him.

Gingerly, he pried her away from himself, his jaw setting at the three, messy gashes in her arm. He didn’t have to examine them closely to know just what kind of damage had been done. He had watched them happen individually. He had watched as the blade slowly dug deeper into her arm and how Sasha had twisted the blade to get her to talk. After the third, she had yielded her answers for one called Natasha and the one called Steve willingly. Something about ballerina graduation, and something about a woman named Peggy and a dance… He had been dealing with electric volts surging into his brain and had missed the exact details.

The skills came naturally to his fingers, despite having no memory of ever having used them before as he stitched her wounds carefully with the med kit that had been purposefully left for them, along with warmer clothes, proper blankets, and bottles of water. He used his already stained shirt to clean the rest of her arm before wrapping it carefully with the bandage roll provided.

She was weak, far weaker than he, and it seemed to spur his need to be as gentle as possible all the more. He knew that she would be cold soon, so carefully, he pulled the pair of clothes left for her into his lap, staring at the pair of thick socks atop a folded, matching set of sweats silently for a minute before taking to dressing her.

He had once wondered why she had never asked for amenities such as these, warmer clothes, better blankets… But he had only supposed then that being rewarded with warm things had a price to pay. Now he knew. He had witnessed the price of niceties first hand, and he didn’t blame her for never asking for them.

Hours later found the pair curled tightly together on the bedroll against the far wall, away from the remnants of the earlier events of the day. She had slept on and off during the time, waking in a fright, only to cry until she fell back asleep as he held her. However, now they were both awake, both calm, both able to pretend that all was right with the world in their little haven beneath the protection of the thick blanket.

“Jay?”

“Mm?” His lips pressed against her forehead as his flesh hand lazily traced random patterns across her back.

“I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

Her confession left him silent for several moments, and his hand slowly retreated from it’s place on her back. “Roza…”

He leaned far enough away from her to be able to see the sad, haunted expression in her eyes. Couldn’t she see that he was here for her? He would take care of her? No? Maybe not.

His flesh fingers carefully pushed her hair away from her face before trailing down the curve of her jaw to tilt her chin up and try to express himself in a way he never had before. Slowly, he pressed finally his lips against hers. Once… Twice… And three times.

Perhaps now she would understand.

“You won’t ever have to be.”


	5. Five

“Are you sure you’re actually prepared for this, Steve?”

It had been months. Months of hunting, months of searching. Months of trailing down lead after lead, following dead ends, and having to go back several steps, and try again. A game of Chutes and Ladders as Sam had called it.

To the outside world, they were hunting down Hydra, eliminating every trace and faction left that remained. However, the team knew the truth. They were searching for Ruby.

“I made a promise, Nat. I owe her this much.”

“That’s not what I mean. This isn’t like when you saved Barnes from a Hydra base the first time. She’s not going to be okay. You know how long they had her before suddenly, Hydra had the information on how to get to your apartment…”

Steve grimaced at the thought, his fists clenching tight until the fingerless gloves squeaked in protest. He didn’t want to have to think about what they had done to her to get her to talk. She was fiercely protective of those she cared about and he had seen first hand how much she was willing to endure to care for those who had been entrusted to her. To get her to talk at all… He shuddered.

“I know. I know this isn’t gonna be like picking up a friend from jail.” He had had to pick up Bucky from jail twice after he had gotten into a drunken bar fight. “I just need to do this. She’s alive. They wanted me to know that she’s alive. They’d want me to know if she was dead too. Until then, she’s being tortured because she dared to get close to us… Close to me… I brought her into this life, it’s my duty to fix this, one way or the other.”

The redhead looked at him with a smidgen of sympathy. She had watched from the sidelines as he tore himself apart over this, over her disappearance, over finding out that Bucky had been alive all this time, but transformed into Hydra’s super-weapon against the world. He still held his shoulders high, held onto hope, and held onto his endearing sense of nobility. He had lost too much too many times, and he couldn’t lose Dr. Harvey again.

“They need her Steve. They still need her, or they would have just killed her after all of our files were made public. There is something that she knows that they need.” Her brows furrowed in thought, pausing before she dared utter the next words. “Or they know that we’ll come for her, and they’re waiting for us.”

“No… Pierce… He was just a puppet. Someone else is pulling the strings, someone patient and willing to wait until things play out the way he wants them to. Whatever he needs her for, it’s not to lure us in. Otherwise he would have used her as bait a long time ago. He’s planning something big.

“Do you think you’ll find Barnes there?”

Her question was quiet, and less of an inquiry as to what his suppositions were, and more to remind him that it was a distinct possibility. Tony had been able to match a half fingerprint from the envelope to Bucky, meaning that somehow, the Winter Soldier had been involved with whatever Hydra was doing with Ruby.

“I don’t know. But he saved my life. He pulled me out of that river. If he’s there, he won’t kill me. He had his chance, and he didn’t take it. He may not remember me, but he knows me.”

But that reminder brought a sickening twist to Steve’s stomach as he processed the possibility that she suffered at the hands of the one who had once been his best friend.

Luckily, Natasha’s phone chirped, drawing his gaze to the screen which suddenly had his full attention.

“Tony’s got a lead. He thinks he found her. It’s time, Steve.”

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

This was what happiness felt like.

He was sure of it.

The passing days, they had been left to their own devices. Warm food was now brought twice a day, and the rest of the time, they spent together. She told him stories about books she had read, tales she had been told, and explained fantastical lands to him that existed in this land of imagination. There were stories of captains who saved the galaxies from aliens, wizards who defeated a Dark Lord, and a whole land called Middle Earth who had more creatures than he could remember. But he listened, fascinated all the same.

Nights were spent following their new routine. What had once been him curled around her protectively with the sole intent of keeping her warm had shifted into him lying on his back on the bedroll as she curled around him with her head resting on his chest as she slept. His metal fingers would comb gently through her blonde locks as his flesh hand covered the one of hers that rested on his chest with their fingers entwined.

Cold was no longer an issue. Sasha’s rewards for her coerced cooperation had proven their worth. Now, they could be comfortable.

A gentle kiss was pressed to the top of her head as she stirred, scrunching up her face as she began to wake. She had finally slept through the night without waking in a sudden panic or terror since Sasha had left them, and he felt a sense of relief at that. He could protect her against any intruder with ease. He would kill to keep her safe if necessary… But there was only so much he could do about the demons in her mind. All he could do was assure her that she was safe now, and that it had only been a dream…

His own demons, he kept quiet, shoving them into a far corner of his mind where they could not disturb him. That Steve Rogers – her Captain, as Sasha called him – had brought too many questions, too many ghosts to his mind, leaving him with so much he was unsure of. But Sasha had never lied to him. He always did what Sasha told him to, even if he didn’t want to. He had to. There was no other option.  
Or was there?

Sometimes, for a moment, he doubted. Ruby’s new clothes covered the majority of her scars, keeping them out of sight so that he could almost forget the extent of the damage on her skin that he had inflicted himself and that he had seen Sasha carve into her… And then the fabric would shift just enough, or his flesh fingers would wander far enough to bring the raised, scarred skin to the forefront of his mind.  
She deserved better. She needed to be protected… From Sasha too. That concept was solidifying in his mind with every passing day. She would be killed eventually – her uses would run out, and she would be disposed of – and that was a thought that he could not abide. He could not allow that to happen.

But that was all he knew.

Too many questions. Too many doubts. Too many orders. Too many thoughts.  
For the time being, he would wait silently and patiently. He had become selfish, craving more of her time and attention that she so freely gave that he shoved all other thoughts of the world outside the cell door as far away from the forefront of his mind as often as he could. To be here, with his hand in hers, stolen kisses exchanged in the quiet… It was perfect. He could have stayed forever like that and been completely content.

But like all perfect things, it wasn’t meant to last forever.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

He could feel his heart hammering inside his chest as he made his way swiftly down the only quiet corridor in the compound. He could hear the others chattering away in his ear piece as they tore through the layers of Hydra security. Normally, he would be in the thick of it with them, his reflexes moving faster than his conscious train of thought with the sweat that dripped invisibly down his back and his neck beneath his suit. Of course, he didn’t feel any of it until after he had a moment to pause and breathe. However this was different. If it weren’t for the firm grip on his shield that he held defensively in front of him, his hands would have shaken from the adrenaline that coursed through his veins. Beads of sweat trickled down the side of his face as his nerves and anticipation made every fiber of his being buzz from the intensity. After months of regret, worry, and endless dead ends, this heavy feeling settled on his shoulders. She was here. She was alive.

And he was going to find her.

Nat had stayed by his side as he sat in the back of the quinjet, warning him about what most of Hydra’s interrogation techniques included, and what he should be prepared to expect… Including Ruby not even recognizing him any more. He could be a complete stranger to her. And trying to visualize just what damage followed with what Natasha had described only made him shudder and the frown that seemed permanently carved into his face became impossibly more hopeless.

He had already once found her beaten with her own scissors embedded into her thigh once before when he had gone to her old office downtown for his weekly session. And that image was forever burned into the darkest parts of his mind with the image of Bucky screaming as he fell off the train into the snowy ravine back so many years ago. Trying to envision the gentle woman who always came with such a warm smile and twinkle in her eyes as a victim of torture… he simply couldn’t. This wasn’t her life, it was his, and he had dragged her into it and put her in the exact position that led to this.

Finally, he came to the last metal door at the end of the hall.

His steps halted as he stared at the lever, trying to steel himself for what would be behind. The gloved hand lifted, wrapping around the dark metal, and with a single push, the door squeaked slowly open.

He heard no movement as he made the first step into the dark cell, and the only his own heavy breathing that seemed to echo, and for a moment, his heart fell in disappointment.

He had been so certain this time, and they had struck out again.

“На шаг ближе, и я убью тебя.”

The sharp voice that came from the dark made sent a shiver down his back as his blood turned to ice.

He knew that voice.

And he knew it too well.

“Bucky?”

“...Steve?”

But the meek, incredulous voice that answered him stole his breath away, and though he felt frozen in place, his feet seemed to somehow carry him forward towards the sound. His voice choked on his own, unspoken words, unable to answer her, no matter how desperately he wanted to. All of the speeches he had prepared in his head for this exact moment, all of the visions of gallantly sweeping in to free her that he had created in his mind in the moments where he couldn’t find any other possible thing to distract him… They vanished in that instant now that that fated moment was here. He was blank.

She sounded so small, her voice incredulous in the same way she had when she had awoken in the hospital with stitches in her leg, and a very worried Steve sitting right beside the hospital bed.

But he froze.

As his eyes adjusted, he could make out the hulking figure near the back wall, who stood protectively in front of a frail looking blonde.

“... Ruby…”  
Her name was barely more than a whisper, as if he was trying to decide whether or not she was even real. He saw a pale, slender hand raise to the shoulder of the glaring man who was guarding her - Bucky. Right. Nat had been right. He was here too. - and whisper something in his ear that made him seem to slowly relax after a long minute.

Later, looking back on this, Steve would chuckle at the realization that Ruby had gotten through to The Winter Soldier and had turned him from an enemy to a trusted companion. Of course she did - only Ruby would be capable of such a feat, turning the man who used to be his best friend against Hydra and to her side.

“Steve… How did you-”

But her question was interrupted as Bucky took a step towards Steve.

“You’re here to rescue her.” A statement not a question. “I’m coming with. I’m not letting anything happen to her. She can’t stay here.”

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

In annoyance, Sasha slammed his laptop shut with an audible clack that would have made the other man beside him in the helicopter flinch, but Sasha’s potential rage was the least of his concerns. In another circumstance, Sasha would have preferred to knock the computer and whatever other contents sat helplessly on his desk to the floor with a frustrated expletive, but the slam that cut off his ability to see the live video feed of his compound, or what was about to be left of it once the Avengers were through tearing it apart.

Damn that Steve Rogers. 

He always ruined everything.

He had had to watch as Tony Stark had finally somehow managed to locate them, and make his escape in minutes rather than try and salvage anything. Hydra would always rise again, plans can be altered, empires can be rebuilt. It was not the end. But it was damned annoying to lose everything.

It had been like a train wreck in slow motion that made a heat churn in his veins. His creation embracing the ridiculous blonde, her eyes beaming and light as she looked between her two men. God, she had turned them into mere dogs. Perhaps more than a hundred years before, she would have been burned at the stake for being so bewitching, and that thought amused him. But the way she smiled as the Fist of Hydra kissed the top of her head, or the way she seemed to glow in Captain America’s embrace… He seethed.

No one else deserved to have her, but himself.

He could only watch the sickening display long enough until he knew that it was truly hopeless, and her immediate recovery would be impossible. His men had failed, and the base had been lost. She would return to the Avenger’s, warn them of what had been asked of her, and from there, she would be well protected and the Avenger’s would be prepared.

Frustration, disappointment, and… jealousy? Was that what that unplaceable feeling was that had made this emotional cocktail of failure taste different?

He would try again. He would bide his time, after all, patience won wars.

They could have their little moment of victory.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Fall had begun to turn the mountains from their rich green, to the golden colors of Autumn. The air was only now truly starting to become brisk, but the heater in the cabin was always on. While the two men that lived there were warm, more often than not, they could not bear to let the blonde woman there cold for even a mere moment. Her comfort was the priority.

Sunlight began to shine down through the windows as the morning birds began singing their usual songs from the trees. The curtains to the bedroom were drawn back, slightly illuminating the outline of the three figures beneath the covers.  
Pieces of domesticity were scattered about the clean cabin. Potted plants, various candles, and blankets could be found in any room. The kitchen was simple, with the basics fully furnished accompanied by a fully stocked pantry. If you weren’t looking close enough, you would never notice the multiple security cameras, or the laser fence that encircled the property. The intense security measures could be almost forgotten.

Almost.

It had been months since the rescue mission that was labeled a success. Months since Ruby had felt the fresh, open air on her skin. Months since the quiet ride back to the Avengers compound. Months since she had finally been medically cleared and brought back up to good health. Months since Jay-The Winter Soldier-James… Well, he had been brought back to a sort of balance and found his name: Bucky.

Time was their friend.

The three were inseparable. Ruby had undergone several medical procedures to try and repair the damage that had not quite healed right and erase as many of the scars that were scattered across her skin. Steve had sat be her bedside faithfully, only finding the will to eat when she chastised him for avoiding him. Bucky had sat on the other side, still not believing how he was allowed to walk free, or even how anyone could look him in the eye after everything he had done had come to light. Natasha had said that everyone had a past, but as he discovered more of his, it became increasingly difficult to swallow.

Many nights early on had been spent with the compound awaking to screaming, and Steve jolting from his brief slip into sleep as Ruby thrashed in the throes of her night terrors. But no one ever held it against her. There was a sense of guilt that hung over them any time she seemed to take a backstep. Once upon a time, she had been the pillar of strength who knew exactly what to do when they fell apart. She had been the one to guard their secrets and build them back up… And now the roles had been reversed.

“Steve, we need to talk.”

It was one of the rare moments, when both Ruby and Bucky were fast asleep, with him curled around her - which after a series of trial and error, they discovered was the only way to get her to sleep peacefully through the night. Of course, Steve and Bucky willingly taking turns holding her close as she slept. Steve had quietly walked into the kitchen where Tony, Natasha, and Barton stood, looking as though they had been waiting for him.

“Do I want to know why this looks like an intervention?”

“It’s not,” Natasha interjected quickly, taking a step closer.

“Ruby can’t stay here.” He had expected Tony to be the one to say something that bold, but it had come from Clint instead. Sharply, Steve turned, glaring dangerously at him, but before he could get a word out, Natasha moved to place a soothing hand on his shoulder.

“What he means, is that she’s not safe here. Nor is she really going to get better here. If Sasha comes looking for her or Barnes, he would have a really good chance at being able to take them if they’re here. They need somewhere off the grid for the time being, otherwise you risk losing them both again.”

He wished she wasn’t making sense. He so desperately wished he didn’t agree with everything she just said… But she was right. Not only would she never truly have a chance at getting better here, she and Bucky weren’t safe here, just as she hadn’t been safe with SHIELD.

Thankfully, it had been Tony who spoke next.

“I’ve got this cabin in the mountains in Montana. I bought it a long time ago originally intending it to be a place where Pepper and I could go to get away off the grid, but... “ It hadn’t happened. “Anyway, I’ve spent the last couple of weeks upping the security and making sure it was retrofitted with everything. Barton took care of getting her things out of storage and moved in there, so everything is already set up for the three of you.”

The darkened expression that had taken over his face lifted at those last few words, and he needed to repeat them just to be certain that he heard them correctly.

“The three of us?”

And finally, Natasha offered a soft smile.

“You love her, Steve. We wouldn’t ask you to leave her. So you’re going with them. Okay?”

Slowly he exhaled, a wave of relief washing the heavy burden that had seemed to sit on his shoulders away.

“Okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> На шаг ближе, и я убью тебя. - One step closer, and I will kill you.


End file.
